This legendary Dad became an Insta-celeb for his page dedicated to hotel carpets

Some people are just so wholesome you just want to lay down and cry for a little while. Bill Young, a father from Texas, is one such human being.

Most of Bill’s working life is spent being a corporate pilot, but he also has a side gig in photography. This means he regularly travels for work (up to 15 days every month) and likes to take photos of the things he sees around him.

Apparently, back in 2015, Bill was spending time in yet another hotel when he realised the carpet had an interesting pattern. He took a photo, uploaded it to Instagram and set something in motion something truly special.

Bill continued uploading photos of curious hotel carpets on his personal Instagram for some time before his wife suggested making a dedicated page. As a result, @MyHotelCarpet was born.

Bill uploaded photos to MyHotelCarpet for a solid two years without garnering much, if any, attention. But that was fine with him – he just enjoyed taking photos of nice hotel carpets, and he was more than happy with his small audience of close friends and family.

The Internet took care of the rest. At time of writing, MyHotelCarpet has more than 540,000 followers on Instagram and counting. Jill said people have been “overwhelmingly kind and saying such nice, positive things about my dad and calling him the ‘Carpet King’ and saying ‘You’re the dad of Twitter.'”

She added: “Someone said, ‘I would die for you, Bill Young.'”

Possibly the best part of all this is how casually Bill is taking it in his stride. People have reportedly suggested he also move into the world of tiles and timber flooring, but he just wants to chug along on hotel carpets for now.

“I’m going to keep posting crazy carpets from my travels,” he said.

“I’ll try to keep it pure.”

Techly got in touch with Bill to see what he had to say about becoming one of the world’s favourite dads in the blink of an eye.

Did you know your daughter was posting about your account on Twitter?

“Jill was home for Thanksgiving Break (She’s a sophomore at University of Texas, Austin – BFA Acting Major) and has always been a fan of the IG account.

“She actually said she was going to try and get me more followers, but I never expected what would happen next.

“After 2 years of careful cultivation, I had 83 followers. I thought I was killing it. ;)”

What inspired you to start the account originally?

“While on layovers I often bring my camera and shoot the local sights/people. I had noticed that many hotels have very funky and interesting carpets throughout.

“I took photos of a few of the more interesting carpets and added them to my Instagram – they didn’t really combine well with the other images I was uploading and my wife Heidi said I should think about making a separate account for hotel carpets. Boom! Two years later here we are…”

A post shared by Bill Young (@myhotelcarpet) on Nov 4, 2017 at 11:55am PDT

Do you have any favourite hotel carpets? Any trends you’ve noticed as an expert on hotel carpeting?

“My favourites tend to the more obnoxious and crazy patterns. Mostly because I get excited about sharing them on my account.

“As far as trends, even the very high-level hotels tend to put a variety of colours and patterns around their properties. I often stay at the same hotels, but I can often find a new pattern/style on a different floor/area I hadn’t seen before.

A post shared by Bill Young (@myhotelcarpet) on Dec 8, 2016 at 5:24pm PST

How did this grow?

“While Jill was home for Thanksgiving we were talking about my @MyHotelCarpet IG. She had always liked it and had encouraged her friends to check it out.

“She said that she was going to try and grow it for me. She sent out a tweet and later that night I saw my followers go from 83 to just over 100. I was ecstatic and thanked her for her efforts.

“The next day everything accelerated a bit. I was sitting in class (I have to go to pilot recurrent training every 6 months) and I had my phone on vibrate. Notifications were enabled on IG and my phone started almost melting down.

“I actually had to enable airplane mode and then figure out how to disable IG notifications. During breaks I would check status and was shocked at the exponential growth. Last I checked it was 430K.

“While this is exciting and I am amazed at the growth, I’m mostly excited for my daughter Jill. She made this whole thing happen and I’m enjoying seeing her shine and enjoy the results.”

Anything else you want to say about the account/your daughter?

“Jill is amazing and I’m always very proud of her. She is a talented actor/writer/comedian and is doing very well at the University of Texas, Austin.

“She is looking for an industry internship this summer in Los Angeles.

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